6-0 lead. Not enough. Jeremy Bonderman couldn’t prevent it. Fernando Rodney couldn’t prevent it. A Matt Stairs home run couldn’t prevent it. The three guys who loaded the bases for Detroit in the 11th couldn’t prevent it. The baseball gods — and Kansas City Royals — did not want to see the Tigers win the Central Division this year. Brandon Inge nearly walked off with a grand slam in the 11th, but the ball went wide left like a Michigan State field goal attempt. His teammates were about ready to charge the field, half climbed over a fence. I hope the photographers got the reaction shot as they climbed back over. That’s the shot of the day. Inge tried again, and the ball skipped foul down the third-base line, tricking Todd Jones. That was that. He followed it up with a strikeout. Curtis Granderson did, too. Royals score in the 12th and it’s over.

Tigers will put that champagne away, put their toothbrushes on the bus, as Tom Gage pointed out, and head to the Bronx as the wildcard team after leading the Central Division since mid-May. Their five-game losing streak won’t matter. Getting swept at home won’t matter. They’re in the playoffs. Let’s hope that matters. What a woefully Detroit way to end the season. I guess as fans of Michigan sports, we should be used to this by now.

Jason Beck: [T]he Tigers have to go to New York, they’d have three prime time games — Tuesday at 8 p.m. on FOX, Wednesday at 7 p.m. on ESPN, then Friday at 8 p.m. on ESPN back in Detroit.

FSN said 8 for Wednesday. They also said Justin Verlander will start. We’ll have to get confirmation of that still. It’s a good oportunity. While he is in all likelyhood rookie of the year, he’ll get an introduction on a big stage in primetime. I hope he makes the best of it.

Maybe in a few weeks, maybe in a few months, and 100% for sure in a few years, this isn’t going to matter in the least. This was a magical Detroit team that surpassed all expectations and we’ll remember several as household names a dozen years from now.

But holy cow, it sucks right now. 90 feet short.

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Raise your hand if you thought the division title would go down to the final day? Okay, maybe a few people said it a month or two ago, but who really means it when they say it?  Raise your hand if you thought the division title would go down to the final day… about 5 hours ago. Okay, so like, no one. Thought so. Detroit lost, 9-6 to the Royals. The Tigers led by as much as -7 in the game. Oh wait. They trailed by seven in the first inning, which starter Zach Miner did not make it out of. Ah yes.

Generally I dislike headlines that say things like “Tigers blow chance” or something in the middle of August. or even September. But when your magic number is, I don’t know, 1 and you lose, that’s pretty much the definition of “Tigers blow chance.”

No spin. Nothing good here. Just an annoying loss after a rain delay — too bad it wans’t a downpour until midnight or something. I don’t know if rain affected things, KC’s pitcher didn’t make it out of the third inning. But the game leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Still, a win or Twins loss Sunday and Detroit can celebrate — I wouldn’t really recommend it at this point — a Central Division title. Jeremy Bonderman is on the mound. That would be somewhat symbolic I guess. We’ll see. If not, then they’ll have been swept by the Royals and enter the playoffs on a 5 game losing streak. Which may not mean much, or it might, we won’t know til next week. But it’s not exactly how you script it.

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The White Sox, sporting a team of who-knows-who, really, and behind a near complete game by Jon Garland, beat Minnesota, 6-3.

Detroit’s magic number is one with two games against the Royals to go. A Tigers win tonight OR tomorrow, and we can all buy new T-shirts!

Go get ‘em Tigers!

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I’m not mad or worried or mad, despite this strange occurance: Detroit dropped a 9-7, 11-inning decision to the Royals Friday night.

Seriously. What. the. Heck? Tigers lead by 5 early. Chicago leads the Twins. I’m picturing a 1 magic number. And sure, KC is making a little comeback. No one ever said the Royals roll over and play dead when they face Detroit. It just looks like when you see the final score. And Todd Jones blows a save. Ouch! But it’s his second of the month. Fair enough. I’m not gonna rip on Jonesey, he does a nice job closing for the most part. He doesn’t put the fear of God into other teams. He just gets them out of the inning and hands them a loss. So, yeah, he blows the save, but Detroit LOADS THE BASES (great cats! I sound like Samara with the caps!) with one out and Pudge is up to bat. Game over. Nope. Inning over. Short pop out and for some reason, the runner (Brent Clevlen) tags up and runs home and isn’t even close. That ball was by no measure hit far enough to force the center fielder (Joey Gathright) to be perfect.

Jim Leyland probably didn’t want to waste his bullpen. That’s my only reason for leaving Jamie Walker in a second inning. Better to blow the game — and who’s saying Walker is going to in the first place? We know he pitches nice — than to blow the entire weekend and post season. But Walker got lit up for three home runs and 4-run 11th inning by the Royals. Detroit loaded the bases with one out, scored two runs, and had two on with one out for Pudge. Redemption? Nope. Just another double play. Sigh. Some days, Pudge has got it. Some days, he doesn’t.

I’m not mad or upset, nor do I really care all that much. Detroit let one get away. You can’t be happy with that. I can guarantee they’re probably mad at themselves and will do something about it Saturday. The Twins lost. The magic number is 2.

But, this is baseball. The magic number can be deleted in a single day now. The Athletics, who owned Seattle all season, blew a big lead and fell to the Mariners in a god awful game Monday. Their magic number was two. They were disgusted. So were the fans, dreading the worst. They were doused in champagne less than 24 hours later. That’s how it works now. We’re playing KC for two more days with a magic number of 2. Minnesota is playing Chicago.

So by this time tonight, White Sox and Tigers willing, we could be fans of the Central Division champions. And that’s why I’m not that upset.

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It was messy. Two errors before one out was recorded. And that was from guys who’ll be starting in the playoffs! Kenny Rogers just struggled today and Detroit fell behind, 7-0, before falling, 8-7.

While something could be said of the lineup, it was not the problem. Detroit scored 6. It’s a day game after a night game. Magglio had a back spasm two days ago. Polanco was injured. Thames had a cold. Today’s win doesn’t matter nearly as much as a win Tuesday. So, pennant race or not, it simply wasn’t a must win game and Leyland didn’t treat it as one.

I think the Tigers take two from the Royals, the White Sox take one from the Twins, and Detroit wins the division. But it doesn’t matter other than the right to wave a flag and buy a T-shirt. As Drew Sharp pointed out, the team with the home field advantage wins 50% of the time. Not much advantage in that. Actually, as bad as Detroit seems to play in day games, maybe we can get some nighttime advantage out of having them as an opponent!

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The long ball ruled the day. Ten of the combined 11 runs in Detroit’s 7-4 defeat came on home runs. Both teams turned a couple timely double plays or the outcome might have been different. For the Tigers, Omar Infante pinch-hitting into a double play with runners on first and second and the team down by three was a key. Nate Robertson having a rare off day was another key. The bright spot was Placido Polanco hitting a homer after working the count. Man, again, it’s so nice to have him back.

The Twins lost, and remain one game (plus tiebreaker) behind the Tigers in the Central with four games left in the season. Detroit’s magic number is 3. In other important news, the Yankees won and will almost certainly clinch home field.

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While I will wait until the season is over to hand out my postseason hardware, let me give you a hint of who has to be leading the team MVP chase right about now. He had three hits Saturday. He had three RBIs against the Blue Jays Tuesday. The Tigers are under .500 with him out of the lineup. They’re awesome with him in it. You guessed it! Placido Polanco. Detroit won, 4-3, to lower its magic number to four.

Polanco drove in two runs with two outs. That’s what we were missing for quite a bit. This season, he’s been the most consistent batter with runners in scoring position and he hasn’t lost anything after the shoulder injury. What I especially liked was the double play to end the game. It was nice to see Polly range to his right and connect with Carlos Guillen. Man, it feels just like that Tigers did for most of the season. It’s fun to watch. You could tell today the team was feeling good.

Jeremy Bonderman didn’t have a terrific game. He never seems to. But he got another quality start. Oh, and he became the first Tigers pitcher since Jack Morris in… 1987… to have 200 strikeouts in a season. The rest of the pitching was fine. It allowed some runs, but nothing of concern. I’d really like to have seen Andrew Miller buckle down and find the strike zone better, but he failed to again. He’s being looked at for the playoff roster but isn’t really doing anything to earn it. Jim Leyland said in the postgame comments on FSN that he’ll get some more chances.

Magglio Ordonez left the game with back spasms. He’ll probably need some rest, but it’s not an injury to fear that much. Leyland didn’t seem concerned, not that he ever shows much of what he’s thinking. I don’t think we have to worry. Jason Beck agrees (and writes about why Marcus Thames wasn’t in the game — flu)
In all, just another fun win. I don’t take them for granted, I just enjoy every minute.

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Oakland clinched the final spot in the American League and their first AL West crown since 2003. With that, the AL playoffs teams were set: Detroit, Oakland, Minnesota, New York.

Yankees won their game, they’re still tied with the Tigers for the best record in the AL but own the tiebreaker. So Detroit trails by one.

Twins beat KC, so they’re still effectively two games behind Detroit for the AL Central title. Detroit’s magic number is 4.

Finally, a big Congrats A’s! I know, I’m a Tigers fan, I shouldn’t say that, but they’re my secondary team and I’m glad they’re back in the playoffs.

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Lost in the passing last night on this blog was the elimination of the 2005 World Series champion Chicago White Sox. Minnesota whipped the Royals. Cleveland whipped the Sox. Why do I bring this up? Because of the postseason implications.

But first, let me write a bit on Chicago. Before the season started, I looked at pitching staffs in the American League, especially those of the Sox and the Indians, as I thought they’d be the two playoff teams. I suspected Chicago would have a dropoff. Several pitchers had career years for the Sox in 2005. These weren’t young guys coming into a third or fourth year, either. These were veteran pitchers where you don’t espect sudden vast improvement. Good defense could lift them. But I didn’t see how they could continu eit for two years. Turns out they couldn’t. Still, I thought the extra runs would make up for allowing a few more and Chicago would be in position to defend its title. I never could have predicted the Sox’ bats would leave them midseason, and they’d drop as many close games as they did. And all that Sox magic that carried them through 2005 and early 2006 was gone, too. Of course, there’s really no such thing as magic. Teams perform in the clutch because they’re good, and because of some luck. Chicago was good. The Indians were much like the Sox, but with an even worse pitching staff in my estimation. Both teams must correct those problems in the offseason, or I suspect we’ll see the same two AL Central teams in the playoffs again next season.

Now, on to the ramifications of Monday’s games. The Twins are now 1 game behind (2, actually, because they must finish ahead of Detroit, not in a tie) the Tigers. They play the Royals, who seem like they ran out of gas after the August surge. And then Twins play the White Sox, who have not only run out of gas, they’ve run out of starters. Jermain Dye was injured this weekend. He played Monday, but we’ll have to see if he plays the whole week. Paul Konerko’s still having back problems. Jose Contreres was shut down for the season. Mark Buehrle may be as well. In other words, don’t count on the old guard to give Detroit a boost when the Sox and Twins meet in the Metrodome. However, Ozzie will be starting some young players, who we hope are hungry and want to prove themselves to help their chances next season. This race for the AL Central title will most definitely require the Tigers to just keep winning. (link to compilation of Sox articles)

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Jim Leyland stood next to FSN analyst Rod Allen on Sunday, away from the fray inside the Kansas City visitors clubhouse.

Leyland and the rest of the bunch could be forgiven for having a celebration with six games remaining and a Central Division title still on the line. It’s been too many years since baseball mattered in the Motor City, but it matters now. With a thunderous 11-4 victory over the Kansas City Royals, the Tigers clinched their first playoff appearance since 1987.

“I’ve been waiting 43 years,” Leyland told Allen. “This is really a thrill for me, this is a special day for me.”

Signed nearly 43 years ago to the day, Leyland hit .222 as a catcher bouncing around the minor leagues, knowing he would never have a long career in baseball behind the plate. He’d never be fearsome with a bat in his hand.

“I waited a long time for this, about 40 years,” Leyland said in an MLB.com article. “It wasn’t just this year. I was a Tiger in 1963 and had a dream of some day managing that team. I didn’t know it was going to take this long. I’m just thankful to God for the opportunity to come back home. To see this today, it’s awful special for the organization and Mr. Ilitch in particular. And selfishly, it’s one heckuva thrill for me.”

Maybe today, he’ll receive too much credit for what he did as the manager of a very talented team. Maybe you’ve disagreed with some of the moves the consensus pick for Manager of the Year has made. But it’s important not to forget the beginning of the season. It started off as a storybook in April. Chris Shelton homers could not be contained by any ballpark. The Tigers began the season by railing off five straight victories. But in mid-April, reality appeared to be crashing down, and Leyland made his move. “We stunk,” he said after a particularly ugly loss to Cleveland at the end of the first homestand. “It’s been going on here before, and it’s not going to happen here. If they won it was OK, if we lost it was OK, and that’s not good enough.”

Leyland served notice. He was going to pull, provoke, prod, or just plain will those Tigers that lost 119 games in 2003 as far as his 61-year-old body could take them. But on April 18, they stunk. Today, they took a chapagne shower.

* * *

Mike Maroth lost 21 games in 2003. He celebrated today. Jeremy Bonderman lost 19. He celebrated, too. Nate Robertson, Jamie Walker, Wil Ledezma and Fernando Rodney were there, too.

As a catcher, Brandon Inge was great. As a batting catcher, Inge stunk. Today, he celebrated. So did Craig Monroe. And Ramon Santiago and Omar Infante.

All those guys saw action in 2003 on one of the worst baseball teams in history, and today, they celebrate a playoff berth.

This has got to feel extra special to them, as well as to Pudge Rodriguez, who stood at a press conference in 2004 and declared he would turn the organzation around. It took some help from some good veterans and great rookies, but he did.

* * *

In 1987, I was eight. I don’t remember much about that year. I can tell you that I moved north from Detroit — just off Mack Avenue — around that time, but I can’t tell you much about the Tigers, their late September run, or their 4-1 playoff defeat at the hands of the Twins. I remember 1984 only in passing, only the knowledge that something cool had occured and it happened to my hometown.

My sports world came together in the late 80s forward. I remember watching the Pistons run to a repeat championship in 1990. I remember attending Tigers games as a kid every trip back to town, sneaking into sections we shouldn’t have been because that’s what kids do. I remember trying to stay awake as the Fab Five went for a national championship and falling asleep, only to wake up to the postmortem of the disaster. I remember backyard baseball — over the garden was a home run. My friends and I each had a ballpark and we’d play 2-on-2 or 3-on-3. I listened to games, sat in a chair next to the stereo to hear Cecil Fielder hit his 50th home run. I remember watching Major League 2 at some point and thinking “If the Indians can be featured in a movie and start winning, why can’t we? We just need a movie!”

I watched the Red Wings rise, fall, rise. I didn’t much like hockey, but it was Detroit and it was winning. Michigan won a national championshp in football.

And then the Pistons improbably won again.

All that, and more, since 1987. Today was a momentous day. It ranks high up there in my sports memories. Hopefully the Tigers make a few more in the coming weeks.

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